


course catalog

by synecdochic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Imported
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:55:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's blowoff semester at MIT winds up a little less blowoff than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	course catalog

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/508674.html) 2011-11-07.)
> 
> I yanked this out of another piece I was working on (that I never finished) because it went in the wrong direction for the rest of the fic, but I loved it so much I couldn't bear to let it languish in the dead fic bits oubliette.

After the disaster that is his first semester, Tony chooses his classes at MIT with an eye to breadth, not depth. (It is utterly infuriating being one of the most intelligent people on a campus known for its geniuses; the professors hold his ignorance of a subject's fundamentals as a perfectly legitimate reason to ignore his conclusions, even when -- especially when -- those conclusions both overturn the conventional wisdom, and happen to be _right_.)

In fall term of his third year, since he's exhausted all the MechE classes that won't drive him nuts, he decides it's time to explore the humanities a little more than required for graduation. He takes Metaphysics, Natural Language Processing, Language Acquisition, a line-drawing class in the Architecture department (closest thing he can find to a drafting class; the whole campus moved to AutoCAD two years before he got there, but he's never been a more-than-adequate draftsman and his father tuts about his proportions), a class that says it's going to use Shakespeare to teach you how to speak in public without tripping over your tongue, and -- on a whim and because it meets at 4PM instead of 8AM -- a class in Norse mythology. (He makes it a personal policy to not schedule any class before noon. He also makes it a personal policy to stay out of any class teaching the history of anything from the beginning of World War II to the present day; too many teachers can't resist smirking in his direction whenever they mention Howard Stark.) He expects that the only class out of the bunch that might be even _remotely_ useful to his future life is the line drawing class. 

Twenty-five years later, standing in the lab he built with the help of the AI he's still the only one who's managed to create (because he's the only one who ever figured out the trick is in talking incessantly to the thing, just like you would a baby), a Norse god at his side as he goes toe-to-toe with Captain fucking America and tries to argue the stubborn bastard around to his way of thinking, it hits him all at once: he hasn't sketched even the _rough draft_ of blueprints, anything beyond the proof-of-concept-on-napkin stage, by hand in twenty years.

(The resulting hysterical laughter fit makes Steve panic and begin thumping him on the back, thinking he's choking, which derails the argument nicely, so hey, at least he got _something_ useful out of the class in the end after all.)


End file.
